Return of The Vampire Counts
by J. Caputo
Summary: Loki Sigismund, Imperial Space Marine and commander of the Black Templars 3rd Company, has stumbled upon what could be the biggest discovery, as well as the most dangerous fight, he has ever witnessed.
1. Prologue

They lunged at him with blinding speed, coming at him in groups of two or three at a time. Their eyes burned through him with red-hot hunger. Loki Sigismund leveled his pistol and pulled the trigger. Hard. The shells slammed into the creatures, sometimes directly in their ugly daemon faces. Still nothing. They just got back up and lunged faster, their skin already healing the very second they were wounded. Their mouths salivated as they lusted for his blood. Their snapping fangs came within inches of his throat before Loki batted them away or sprayed them with lead rain. In all his years, Loki had never seen a creature as threatening as these. He was the best soldier in the Imperium, and still, these bastards might be the ones to finally do him in. His visor told him there were no records in the Emperor's Grand Library about them, but he was sure he had read about them before.

Loki was suddenly thrown to the ground, armor and all. In an instant one of them had climbed on top of him, fangs bared and eyes burning, and began to actually rip his Mark IV plate armor off! The fiend pulled away chunks of metal weighing hundreds of pounds and threw them to the side as though they were nothing. It's grimy fingers closed around Loki's throat and its black, oozing nails bit into his flesh. It was then that Loki's life flashed before his eyes.


	2. Discovery

The stars shined brilliantly in the black, empty void of space and the low hum of the battle cruiser's engines filled Loki's ears. The celestial backdrop outside the front view port gave Loki a sense of peace. It was always like this and he often liked to stand there and take in the scene, the silence set against the hum of the powerful engines of the ship. He breathed deep, never taking his eyes off the little points of nuclear light.

Behind him followed the entirety of Terra's 171st Battle Fleet, the pride of the Black Templars, and the favorite guns of the Terran military. The Black Templars were known for their swift victories in battle and for their cunning strategies. Their exploits, carried out for the glory of Terra and for the almighty Emperor of Mankind, were quickly becoming the stuff of legend in the eyes of many of the other squadrons of marines. Death had become their slave and the Black Templars, its commanders. It was to them a weapon that they could aim and fire at whichever targets they wished. This was their purpose, all in an effort to further the glory of the human race, and redeem themselves in the eyes of their brother Astartes.

They had been in cold space now for several months, making the long journey from Holy Terra to the edges of the galaxy, when they received a distress signal from a freight ship previously thought lost to uncharted territories. Loki now stared at the computer's calculations being displayed on the mother ship's main view ports. Various figures and diagrams flashed across the screen and fed information to the crew on the bridge. A small circle enveloped an area in the distance from which the signal was emanating. As the fleet crept closer the circle grew wider and when they had come close enough, the ship's computer showed them an enhanced holographic image of the damaged freight ship. Loki could even see the various types of debris swirling around its hull. He could tell by the giant hole in the port side of the ship that nothing could have survived whatever the ship had gone through.

The bridge itself was a large open space at the front of the ship and consisted of two actual floors. The command deck, the higher of the two, was a raised platform that stood overlooking the main bridge deck below. Loki sat here with the ship's main console feeding him all information and status reports the ship had to give. Before him, one level down, was another deck, where the main members of his crew sat at various controls and consoles, performing various functions related with piloting and defending the fleet. They were arrayed around the edges of the room facing away from Loki and toward their consoles. In the center of the main deck was a large holographic display system showing Loki in stunningly clear visuals the main information pertaining to the mission and the current diagnostics of the ship. Loki could, if he wanted to, influence the holographic display from his main console. Directly in front of Loki was the large front viewport window, showing nothing but the infinite spatial void. His gaze, however, was focused on the holographic display of the damaged ship.

"Castellan Morris," Loki commanded, "Status report on the freighter."

A tall, muscular marine stood from his seat on the bridge. "Currently the ship is not giving off any discernible evidence that it has run within the last standard week. The engines are damaged and a power up is impossible. Shields are non-existent and the cargo has been mostly lost."

"What about bodies?"

"Still too early to tell."

"Alright. Continue set course at the predetermined velocity. I want this done by the book, people. I expect nothing less from you. We go in, we get out, end of discussion."

The marine seated himself quickly and went back to analyzing the freighter.

The ships' engines burned bright blue as the fleet accelerated towards the ruined freighter. Within minutes they were within enough distance that they could discern everything with their eyes alone. The area around the freighter was a graveyard, devoid of any form of life, completely silent and dead. Debris floated around the ship, making it impossible for the large battle cruisers to get any closer. Loki commanded the fleet to halt until a set procedure for investigation could be calculated. Lieutenant Morris came to stand beside Loki and they began to pore over the figures and statistics displayed on the front view port.

"Well," said Morris, "what do you think?"

"There's no way we'll get through all this debris with this battle cruiser. It'll be like navigating through a mine field. We can't be sure how much of this debris could ultimately cause damage to the ships."

"We're not even close enough to fire the main guns."

"I wouldn't want to anyway. Could start a chain reaction that'll end up wiping out our entire fleet as well as all the data on the ship. We can't take the chance."

"What do you suggest?"

Loki seemed to lose himself in his thoughts for the moment. Various plans and battle tactics fluttered into his mind as he sifted through the decades of battle experience. Here was where his rank as general came out in full display. He scanned his vast memory for a solution to their immediate problem. To the rest of the regiment, he seemed to reach his decision instantly, but that was simply many years of experience. "We send a team to the ship. Single-man fighters will dock with the ship's port and we'll go in on foot. We'll bring standard pistols instead of lasguns to minimize the chances of blowing ourselves to bloody chunks."

"Do you really think this mission requires the use of weaponry, sir?"

"Castellan, I've seen some pretty strange things in this galaxy and still I've seen only a small bit of the dangers the galaxy has to offer. There could be anything on that ship."

The damaged freighter loomed ahead of them through the main view port. Looking at it, Loki could feel a sense of foreboding emanating from the ship that made his guts wrench. Still his orders had been very clear. Investigate the ship's distress call and download all data from the ship so as to hide it from enemy hands. Loki hated rescue and reconnaissance missions, but they were the orders of the High Marshall, and by extension the Emperor, and he had made an oath to never disappoint humanity's omnipotent leader.

As the 171st Fleet crept slowly closer Loki's feelings of imminent danger only escalated. He quickly recanted a mental exercise to slow his heart and calm himself down. Simply looking at the ship, however, with its insides exposed as though something had ripped right through it, sent a chill through his body that he found difficult to shake off. It was as though death itself inhabited the Space Marine vessel, and, looking upon its vacant hull, Loki realized that in a twisted way, death actually did.

The proximity sensors began their rhythmic wailing as the cruiser entered the field of debris that surrounded the damaged ship. Occasionally, a piece of scrap metal or some floating box of supplies would bounce against the hull and send the proximity sensors into frenzies. Loki took comfort in this, however, knowing that the ships systems were fully operational and running without errors. He had the strange feeling that they would be needing them soon enough. His guts told him this had the stench of the Warp all over it. And even though they were far from the Occulis and an attack by the beasts of the Warp was almost impossible, his gut feelings were usually right. Loki looked once again towards the damaged ship and his gaze focused hard on the gouging rips lining the hull. He thought to himself then that it was a real shame they didn't have any Grey Knights with them. Though Loki and his men were savage experts in combat, the Knights of the Ordo Malleus were savage experts in combat against the Immaterium.

Eventually the sounds of dull, light impact ceased and the fleet had now come within several hundred yards of the ruins. They no longer needed the ship's scopes to see the wreckage. It was now visible, gouge marks, floating dead, and all, without the need for magnification.

"Navigator Eisen," Loki called to a young marine sitting at the controls. Eisen stood quickly and saluted.

"How long until we reach the freighter?"

His response was just as quick. "E.T.A. is about two minutes and forty seconds."

Loki nodded approvingly. "Excellent. At ease soldier." The marine seated himself with that same startling speed. He's fast, Loki thought to himself. Good reflexes, too. His reputation does not do him justice. Loki wondered, though if speed and agility alone would be enough to get him through a battle. He didn't think so.

The ship pulled ever closer to the freighter and every inch they gained towards the damaged ship, the more it looked to Loki like a large, dead animal, it's former beauty and testament to the Imperium's grandeur stripped away. He could hardly bear to continue looking at it. It seemed like such a waste.

"Where should we dock sir?" said the navigator. Loki was awakened from his stupor and, realizing that the time to act had finally come, became suddenly very alert and all of his training as a space marine came rushing to the forefront. To anyone looking at him during this transformation, he would have seemed to be growing larger and taller, more regal in his stature. He took on the full countenance as a leader and when he next spoke, his orders boomed from his mouth.

"Navigator."

Eisen stood, saluted. "Yes sir."

"Dock the fleet at the rip in the freighter's hull, but be gentle. We don't want to damage whatever's left inside."

"Yes sir." Eisen sat.

"Castellan Morris."

"Sir."

"Upload a schematic of the freighter's layout to our armor. Also upload any other information pertaining to our objectives on the freighter. Fill the armor's databanks if you must. Leave nothing out."

"Sir."

"Castellan Roumelle."

A marine sitting near the communications console stood. "Yes sir."

"Patch me through to the rest of the fleet. It's time to move."

Roumelle saluted, sat down, and began fiddling with his console. After several seconds, Loki heard the soft pop as the sound systems powered up. Roumelle stuck his thumb up at Loki, giving him the signal to begin.

Loki cleared his mind and focused again on the holographic freighter floating in front of him. In that small instant his regal air left him, but only for that instant. In that instant, all the scenarios of things that could go horribly wrong played out in his mind. And he forcefully dismissed every single one and reaffirmed his focus. When Commander Loki returned, his regal stature had seemed to double. He was now Loki the commander, the marine, the Emperor's soldier, and one of the most deadly fighting forces in the galaxy. His voice was harder and more inspiring than ever. Even though the radio systems of the fleet carried his voice to every ship, Loki's words boomed through the speakers.

"This is your commander Loki Sigismund calling the marines of the 171st Battle Fleet to arms."


	3. Reconnaissance

**Chapter II**

THE INSIDE of the ship emulated the bleak cold of deep space. The walls echoed with the voices and the thoughts of those that belonged to its crew. It was enough to send a sharp chill down the back of one who was bred to be fearless, though when considering the awesome force that destroyed an Astartes freighter, it was so very difficult not to be.

Loki and the Black Templars docked with the ship merely moments ago. Shouldering their bolt pistols, they took their Oaths of Moment and once more took on the responsibility of defending the Imperium from the chaotic and evil power of the Warp. They had walked through the airlock to the freighter and reassembled in the darkened, cold armory of the freight ship. Besides Loki himself, Castellans Morris and Roumelle each led their own Fighting Companies.

The armory was in a state of great disarray. Bolters and cases of ammunition lay strewn across the floor. Components of chainswords and power fists were scattered across desks and chairs. Entire pieces of terminator armor lay cracked and mangled. There were gouge marks on the bits of broken weapons and armor, as though something ripped clean through them. Loki lifted what seemed to be a mangled half of a bolter off the floor and, using the extrasensory tools embedded in his helmet, began to thoroughly examine it. According to his armor's analysis the bolter could never be used again. Loki dropped it with a disgusted grunt.

Further inspections of his surroundings only served to further Loki's growing suspicions of foul play. There were holes and burn marks covering the walls of the corridors. Fuel line pipes and air-routing tunnels were completely severed, their split edges gouged and serrated as could only be by done by the Astartes chain weapons. There was no mistaking it, impossible as it was for Loki to grasp. The crew of this freighter had turned upon the passengers and slain every last one of them, destroying the ship along with their very lives. But something was missing. _Where were the bodies?_

Upon seeing the destruction around him, Loki's convictions quickly became real. He was very afraid to admit that the Emperor's marines could turn on each other and do such a thing, though it very truthfully wouldn't have been the first time. Loki's thoughts centered on a marine, perhaps the greatest of them all that ever fought under the Emperor's banner, the favorite son. But no, even thinking his name was forbidden by the Emperor, and Loki would not smear his Emperor's name by having him occupy the same space in his mind as the fallen one. Loki kept his thoughts on his mission. A transmission from one of the other marines broke his thoughts and brought his mind careening back to the tomb within which they now stood.

"Marshall."

"Yes, marine," Loki said.

"It looks like the ship was attacked by bolters, sir."

"Yes, I had come to the same conclusion. No human but Space Marines can weild such weapons."

"Marines were responsible for this?"

"It is possible. We will have to conduct a thorough investigation through this ship. Alright, here's the plan. Castellan Roumelle, you and your Company will take on reconnaissance. Any and all information you gather is to be transmitted to our ship's main databases. Castellan Morris, you and your company will search for survivors and hostiles. Should you find hostiles, kill them where they stand, and notify me. I don't want a recurrence of whatever happened here. As always, watch your backs. For the Emperor!"

With that the marines vanished into the bowels of the dead ship. Loki, himself, followed the reconnaissance team. He wanted just as badly as anyone else to know exactly what happened here. Searching the ship however was proving to be fruitless, as many of their careful expeditions into the ship were turning up some of the exact same results. They found nothing but damaged plate armor, broken bolters, and dried blood that had been spilled onto the walls and floors. The weapons and ammunition they found were mostly damaged far beyond use, but they were able to secure a small assortment of weapons that seemed in working order.

For a long while Loki saw only the backs of his men as he followed behind them and heard only the metallic strike of their boots on the floors of the ship. The silence seemed to envelop him. Even his helmet's sensors picked up no energy signatures, sonic or otherwise, save for the ones coming from his men. Everything around him was dead, lifeless, and cold. Whoever had attacked their ship, they had to be damned skilled to get passed a legion of the Emperor's marines.

"This isn't normal, Marshall," one of his men said as they walked.

"Just keep your sights and your weapon forward, marine," replied Loki.

They passed a number of rooms as the continued down the corridor of the freighter, but everywhere there was just more of the same. Dust, broken equipment, and silence. The cold of space had completely consumed what was once an incredibly beautiful craft carrying a battalion of Terra's finest trained killers.

They finally came to a hallway with many doors leading into private cabins.

"Split into teams of two," Loki commanded, "One goes in and one stands guard at the doors. Search the rooms and report anything you find."

The marines saluted and executed their orders, moving with calculated efficiency. Within seconds they were turning the freighter's crew's quarters upside down. Within a few short minutes they were already reporting over the intercoms in their suits.

"All clear, Marshall."

"Nothing but dust and clothing."

"Nothing good here, sir."

Loki went into the Captain's quarters alone. As his men's reports came in one by one, his heart began to sink at the thought of reporting back to Terra empty-handed.

The captain's quarters was a small room. There was a bed to Loki's left, a door leading into the lavatory in front of him, and in the right corner of the room was a glowing console on top of a desk. Closer inspection of the room turned up nothing interesting. The console, however, was not only lit, but still receiving transmissions of trajectory data and reports from other freighters running along other trade routes. There was also a logging device at the very edge of the desk upon which the console stood. Loki turned the device on and found the entire history of the captain's personal records. He sighed and began to search through the ship captain's log.

Before long, Loki found himself growing increasingly disinterested. The logs were bland and boring, and cited nothing out of the ordinary. Loki was about to shut the log off when the last entry caught his eye. At first he skimmed the words quickly, but with the completion of each sentence, he slowed his reading and began to devour each and every word. There was a video attached to the entry, and touching his armor's fingertips to the screen of the log, he downloaded the video and began to play it back within his visor.

The captain of the ship appeared in front of Loki, his face frozen in terror. He was shaking and his quick, heavy breathing could be heard through Loki's speakers with incredible clarity. He seemed badly wounded. Blood dripped from deep gouges on his face. One of his eyes had been torn clean out from its socket and there was a large gash on his throat from which blood shot forth with each beat of his heart. Loki now noticed that the captain was laying on his side, and his logging device was looking down on him from its place on the console. The captain was quickly dying and was only able to quietly mutter a few words:

"...daemons...not...daemons...all dead..."

The video ended there, and Loki's visor switched back to live view. He read the rest of the log. Most of it was unintelligible, and consisted of nothing more than crazed rantings about the daemons of the Warp, which the Emperor, praise his Holy Name, fought diligently in his never-ending struggle to save the citizens of the Imperium from its corrupting influences. The rest of the log described the locations of weapons caches and other resources such as medical supplies, food, and the ship's onboard networked computer servers.

Loki checked the positions of his Templars through the onboard map in his armor. By now he estimated they were done checking the upper decks and were ready to regroup and move further into the ship. He was about to leave when something in the last entry of the log grabbed his attention. In the middle of one of the paragraphs the captain had written a set of coordinates. They seemed to have just been stuck there in the middle of other data where they didn't belong. Using small finger strokes, Loki entered the coordinates into his armor. His visor locked in on a position within the very bowels of the ship. Loki suddenly wondered what could possibly be down there that it would grant such a special mention in the captain's log.

Loki set the log down on the console where he had found it, and began to leave. Taking one final look around the room, a question formed in his mind, something that was nagging at him since he had entered the captain's quarters. If the log sat on the console unmoved and the captain recorded the last entry, then where was the captain? Either the log was moved, or he was moved. Either way, Loki made sure to remember to look for an answer to that question. Little did he know that that decision was the one that would condemn him and his men to endless suffering.


	4. Condemnation

**Chapter III**

AS LOKI walked briskly down the corridor leading out of the captain's quarters, his helmet's speakers hissed as Castellan Morris's voice came through.

"Marshall, we've received your coordinates. Should I tell the company to rendezvous?"

"Yes," said Loki. "Tell them to meet there within two minutes. I think I may have found something worth looking at."

"What is it?"

"Don't know yet, but the captain of this vessel thought it important enough to make sure to scribble it into his last log entry."

"Interesting. We'll meet you at the rendezvous point."

On Loki's HUD, the map showed that his men were converging on the hallways leading to the elevators. After several moments of walking through the long, empty hallways, he reached the elevator lobby. There were as many as five marines in front of the dead elevator awaiting him. The looked like giants cramped into this small space, and though Loki seldom ever thought about it, he now saw why the Space Marine Legions had been the most fearsome fighting force in the galaxy before their sundering. He focused his mind on the task at hand and set his pride for his Templars aside for the moment. Pride, after all, was one of the ways to the halls of Slaanesh. He checked himself and strode forward to the elevator console next to one of the doors.

Though the console glowed and was accessible. It showed that the connection to the elevator controls had been severed. Loki turned to one of the marines, a tech specialist.

"Can you bypass it?"

The marine shook his head. "No-go, sir. If the connection to the elevator was severed, I need to enter the shaft in order to get it running again, sir. It'll be faster if we find some stairs."

"Very well. Stairs it is."

The stairwell was a narrow passage, designed for normal humans. The huge bodies of the Adeptus Astartes barely fit in between the railings, but they made due. Loki descended in the middle of the line, protected by his marines. With every landing they came across on the way down, the Templars raised their bolters to cover all corners of the stairwell. As they moved lower and lower, there was less light with which to see. Their helmets immediately switched them over to infrared vision to compensate. They reached the bottom of the stair without any trouble.

As Loki and his company filed into the pitch dark hallway, his HUD told him that the mark was down this very hallway. They kept their bolters ready as they remained on guard for any heat signatures other than their own. Loki was wary when dealing with his fallen brothers. They were just as dangerous as he was, if not more so. If any of them remained on the ship, he wanted to be sure to take them out before they did the same to him or his men.

The hallway was eerily quiet as they made their way through the blackness. The only sounds came from the Templars' footfalls on the metal floor. Loki could hear his own hearts beating in his chest. Something about the quiet unsettled him. Loki simply couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched. His armor picked up nothing but his fellow marines, but still he felt as though someone other than he and his men was there. At times he even swore he could see movement in his visor at the edges of his vision. When he turned to get a better look, though, everything appeared to be normal. It was nagging at him the whole way down the long hallway.

There was a sudden loud clang as something metallic fell and hit the floor.

"Did you hear that?" one of the marines suddenly asked.

"Stay focused, marine," said Lieutenant Morris.

Nothing out of place occurred from then on as the Templars slowly made their way down the corridor. There were no sounds, no disturbances coming from the darkness. Even that nagging feeling in the back of Loki's mind was gone.

Before long, they noticed a faint red light coming from the hall around the corner to their right. Two marines went ahead, bolters at the ready. They rounded the corner, looked around, and checked their weapons. They then waved on the rest of the company. Loki rounded the corner ahead of the others and found that he was standing in front of a great metal door. The light was coming from the overhead warning bulb as it flashed on and off.

The door itself seemed to be heavily damaged. There were deep gouges and dents in the metal. The wall was extensively cracked around the door's frame. Blood covered this corner of the hallway. It seemed to have splashed on the walls and ceilings as well as the door itself. Immediately to the right of the door, where the console had been on the wall, there were now only wires that sparked on occasion, throwing the Templar's' shadows against the walls. In the red light, the sight before them seemed even more menacing.

"Let's get this thing open," said Loki.

The Templars' tech specialist made his way through the hallway behind Loki and made his way over to the door. He kneeled down in front of the loose wires, his incredible height compacting so that he was eye-level with the console. The tech specialist touched several of the wires together and the door before them shot open. The two marines at the head of the line raised their weapons. The room beyond was as dark as the hallway behind them. Their infrared visors picked up the slack their eyes had given.

A quick sweep of the room proved to show them nothing different from what they had found on the upper deck. There was equipment scattered all around the room, and by the look of it, this room had once been a medical examination room. There were syringes, broken test tubes, deactivated data slates, and smashed monitors. Several examination tables lined the walls on both sides. Equipment lockers stood next to them, potentially hiding anything of value. It was a gigantic hall of a room, easily able to fit Loki's entire company.

"Templars," said Loki, "conduct a perimeter check. I want to know if there's anything in this room we can use."

Loki checked the map on his HUD. It showed that the coordinates pointed to this very room.

"The coordinates point to this room," he said. "Let's see if we can find out why this room was so important to the captain."

The Templars fanned out to all corners of the room and began to turn over cabinets, examination tables, and chairs, adding to the mess in the middle of the room. They reported, one by one, that nothing unusual had been found. With each report, Loki grew increasingly disappointed, and was beginning to think much less of the captain.

Loki suddenly jerked himself to the nearest wall, and, standing with his back against it, raised his bolter and brought it to point directly ahead of him. He looked around frantically. He was sure he had seen it this time, just on the edge of his vision. Movement in the shadows.

"All units on defense!" he yelled. Immediately the marines raised their weapons and began to search around for a target as they backed up against the nearest wall.

"What is it Marshall?" asked Morris.

Loki continued to look for it. "There's something here. I know I saw it. Be on your guard."

One of the marines was suddenly hauled off his feet and dragged up into the dense network of pipes and cables in the ceiling. The Templars heard their brother scream as they fired their weapons into the darkness.

The room was suddenly alight with bolter fire. Marines left their defensive positions to get a better shot on whatever it was that had gotten hold of their brother. Pipes exploded and cables snapped and sparked as bolts slammed into them and severed them. Loki aimed his weapon directly into the ceiling where the Templar disappeared and unleashed his entire clip. All at once the firing ceased. Smoking bolters and silence filled the room.

"Reload," said Loki. "I don't like this."

All at once time seemed to slow down. Loki was suddenly aware of two things. First the body of a Templar was falling from the ceiling rafters, the armor that once covered the Astartes was torn clean off. Loki could see that his throat had been slashed and the body was falling in a spray of blood. It splashed onto his visor as the body hit the floor. Something fell along with the body bounced on the floor next to the fallen Templar. Secondly, Loki knew that the door at the far end of the room had been blown off its hinges. Sparks flew from where it had once stood as the door bounced across the room and slammed into the wall where two Templars used their superhuman strength to knock it aside. The door fell to the floor with a loud clang. No time to worry about his dead brother, so he turned his attention, and his gun, to the door. He slammed the new clip in place and cocked the weapon. What he saw made him doubt everything the Emperor had ever told him of daemons and the Warp.

They wore the skin of a human but they crawled along the walls and ceiling with incredible speed. They hissed and howled as a whole horde of them broke into the room. Their skin was pale as skin is in death, and they reeked of it too. Their eyes shone brightly in the darkness as if they were lit from within, and they gave no heat signature, making their movement hard to track through infrared visors. Leaping from the walls and bounding through the door, they set themselves upon the Templars in the exam room. They were all wearing human clothing. Loki spotted lab coats and military uniforms as well. Some of them even wore the dregs of the Astartes Mark IV plate armor. One of them fell from the ceiling, Astartes blood still fresh on its lips.

"Fire at will!" Loki commanded. He pulled the trigger and sprayed bolts into the creatures as they shot through the door. The examination room had become chaos in a matter of seconds. Silence had been replaced by howls and roars, and the constant blast of bolter fire. Within seconds they were all over him, and Loki and the Templars missed most of their shots, only hitting the creatures once or twice.

"Are these daemons?" asked Morris.

"My visor turns up nothing about them in the Imperial Library, sir," said a marine.

"Stop your chatter and shoot, marine," yelled Loki.

They lunged at Loki with blinding speed, coming at him in groups of two or three at a time. Their eyes burned through him with red-hot hunger. Loki Sigismund leveled his pistol and pulled the trigger. Hard. The shells slammed into the creatures, sometimes directly in their ugly daemon faces. Still nothing. They just got back up and lunged faster, their skin already healing the very second they were wounded. Their mouths salivated as they lusted for his blood. Their snapping fangs came within inches of his throat before Loki batted them away or sprayed them with lead rain. In all his years, Loki had never seen a creature as threatening as these.

Throughout the battle, Loki's helmet was filled with comm chatter as Templar after Templar fell to the beasts.

"Templar down!"

"They're tearing into my -"

"Get them off me!"

Loki had never heard fear in the voice of an Astartes, not since the Imperial Civil War. But fear was there now. These creatures were not daemons. The captain was right. These things that bore human form were something completely different, for they lacked the very thing the Chaos gods were after: souls. They had no heartbeat and no heat signature, which even daemons of the Immaterium possessed. These things were dead. All dead, and yet they moved with more vigor and speed than anything living ever could.

Loki was suddenly thrown to the ground, armor and all, by a force so powerful, it felt like a bolt from his own gun slamming into his chest. In an instant one of them had climbed on top of him, fangs bared and eyes burning, and began to actually rip his Mark IV plate armor off! The fiend pulled away chunks of metal weighing hundreds of pounds and threw them to the side as though they were nothing. It's grimy fingers closed around Loki's throat and its black, oozing nails bit into his flesh. It was then that Loki's life flashed before his eyes.

The thing lowered its wet lips to his exposed throat, and just as the creature was about to bite into his flesh, there was a loud crash. A round of bolts tore through the creature, sending it barreling away. To Loki's horror, the mass of flesh it had been beaten into stood up and began to reshape itself! Castellan Morris stood over Loki and pointed his bolter at the glob of flesh and fired. His bolter clicked empty as the creature went down and began to slowly reform itself again.

"I don't know what these things are," said Morris, "but I'll be damned if we lose this fight here." He extended a hand to Loki, which Loki took.

Loki stood up and noted the damage done to his armor, which was extensive to say the least.

"At least we know what happened to the crew of this ship," he said.

"I'm out," said Morris. He threw the bolter to the floor and unsheathed his chainsword. Loki did the same. They stood back to back and waited for the creatures to make their attack on them.

Loki's comm system cracked to life. "Permission to speak, Marshall."

"Go ahead," said Loki.

"Sir I think we may have a shot."

"Spit it out marine."

"These bastards seem to be afraid of something we found, sir. We can't guess why. If you can, try to make your way to our position. We might be able to hold them back."

Loki looked around the room and found the corner where a sizable number of his company was hacking a group of the creatures. Behind them lay an open medical locker. Loki couldn't see what was in the locker that was making these things stay back, nor did he care. He and the Lieutenant began to slowly move toward the group of Templars.

"Cover us," said Morris.

"Roger."

Bolter fire sprayed around Loki and Morris as they moved over back-to-back. The creatures, with a complete disregard for themselves lunged at them. Loki batted his chainsword at them as they came, but wasn't fast enough. His armor bore the brunt of their attacks as they clawed and snapped their teeth at him. Eventually, Loki found himself standing in the midst of the Templars as they continued their defensive assault on the beasts. Morris took a bolter from a deceased Templar and fired into the creatures along with the others.

"Now let's see what's been keeping them back," said Loki.

As he made his way to the locker he found it to be mostly empty, except for a waist-high golden object. Loki grew increasingly puzzled. It didn't answer the question that now burned inside of him. Why were these things afraid of it?

_No matter_, he thought. He gripped the object tightly and, lifting it, moved toward the creatures. They immediately retreated from him and gave him a wide berth.

"Herd them!" yelled Loki. "We'll trap them back in the corridor through which they came. I'll set this down at the door frame."

As Loki moved forward, carrying the large, golden object, the Templars kept the creatures tightly together with their remaining ammunition, their swords, and their lives. As the Templars surrounded the beasts, armor was torn off, throats were slashed, and Templars fell. The monsters moved back, however, away from the object in Loki's arms. Even their incredible power seemed to wane in the presence of this one object, and Loki found himself wondering what it was that was making this thing hold so much power over the creatures.

Eventually, they reached the end of the room where the Templars herded the last of the creatures through the door. Hissing and howling, the creatures shrank into the darkness beyond the examination room. Loki set the object down right in front of the door. He stepped back and took a deep breath. Though there was still the occasional hiss as one of them tried to reenter the room, the battle was for the most part over, at least for now.

Loki surveyed the damage. "Templars report," he said.

"Considering all the factors," said Morris, "I'd say that roughly half our force remains, Marshall."

"Half." Loki sighed. The bodies of dead Templars were everywhere. Blood covered the walls and floor of the room. Loki could barely contain himself. Never before had he known such an emotional test. So many thoughts rushed through his head at once. It felt as though his skull would crack from the pressure. For an instant, a single dismissible instant, Loki was at a complete loss. For that one instant a wave of exhaustion rushed over him. In that instant he saw the battle's start. He saw one of his men dragged off their feet into the ceiling rafters. He saw the body fall, battered and bloody. In that instant he remembered the object that fell with the body and landed on the floor next to hit.

Loki could almost hear the sound it made when it fell as he rushed over to the spot where the dead marine still lay. There on the floor, unmoved during the carnage, was the object. Loki picked it up and discovered it was a small silver medallion. On one side he saw the visage of the creatures that attacked them. It had the same red eyes and the same fanged mouth. Loki turned it over, and was puzzled by what he saw. The other side was blank, except for a few letters etched in the metal that puzzled him as to their meaning. They were written in the language of the Imperium, and that puzzled him even more. When read, the letters simply spelled:

VON CARSTEIN


	5. Knowing is Half The Battle

**Chapter IV**

"Who, or what, is von Carstein?" asked Loki as he threw the medal to the floor. It seemed to hit the metal deck with a loud clang that suddenly brought the silence in the room to Loki's full attention.

"We're already looking into it, Marshall," said Morris. "Current Imperial records, however, show no mention of the name anywhere, though the etymology of the name suggests a pre-Imperial origin."

Loki confirmed this through the visor in his own helmet. Searching for the name 'von Carstein' in the Imperial Library returned no results. Even the crest on the medal was unrecognized. The dark hallway at the end of the room was finally silent. Even so, Loki could feel them lurking in the darkness, waiting for the moment his men removed the golden object from the doorway. The silence brought with it the weight of his regiment's losses. Never before had the Black Templar Space Marine chapter suffered such heavy losses.

A sudden dread wormed its way into the pit of Loki's stomach. The realization hit him harder than those beasts had. They would have to destroy this infection. Loki had been faced with impossible tasks before, but his blood froze in his veins at the very thought of possible losing the rest of his force to those daemons. Loki could not allow these creatures to make their way off this ship. His mind pictured the unthinkable. He saw Terra, his beloved home, overflowing with these mindless monsters, the streets awash with human blood. He was suddenly brought out of his stupor as the horror was about to hit home.

"Marshall Sigismund," said Morris. "Are you all right?"

Loki turned to the golden object at the end of the room. "Castellan Morris, order the men to take the dead and wounded over to one side," he commanded. "Have the apothecaries called into this vessel to attend to the wounded and to remove the gene seed from the dead."

"Yes sir!"

"Also have the Brethren called down as well. I will not risk any more lives if I don't have to."

"Yes sir," saluted Morris. Loki began to walk to the object.

"And Morris?"

"Sir?"

"Hurry."

Loki could hear Morris issuing orders to the Templars as he strode down the room. The object gleamed brilliantly in the light of the doorway. Loki couldn't quite explain it but he felt as though the very light of the Emperor Himself were emanating from the object. Using his visor, he recorded a pict of the object and sent it to his ship's computers to have it run through search filters. He kneeled down close to it.

"What are you?" he said. "What are they so afraid of?"

Loki's vox suddenly cut in. "Marshall Sigismund?"

Loki opened communications. The face of Carnel Luthis, an orator tied to his expedition, appeared in front of him. Despite the fact that he was an orator, and therefore not well liked amongst the company of Templars, he held considerable rank and was well-respected by Loki as a friend.

"Orator Luthis," said Loki. "Come to impede my progress on a mission yet again?"

Luthis smirked. "Normally, Marshall, I would jump at the chance to set you back a full crusade, not that your men need my assistance. However, I have just come across that image you sent to us. I must say it is most remarkable."

"Do you know what it is?"

"There isn't much information, but I believe I've seen it before. It is directly related to the Old Terra in the time before the Emperor. I believe it even predates the Stellar Exodus, and may even predate mankind's ascension to the stars."

Loki reeled. The object was older than the Imperium itself, older than the Emperor!

"There is precious little information from that period in our history," Luthis continued. "So much was destroyed during the Age of Strife. It really is a wonder we've been able to uphold an empire at all. But why have you sent me a picture of this object?"

"I didn't," Loki said. "I sent it to the Imperial Library for examination. You intercepted it. Are you aware of what's happened down here?"

"I've read the report already. It is terrible, absolutely dreadful."

"Those warp-twisted beasts were afraid of this thing, Carnel. They acted like they hated it."

Luthis's eyes squinted to small slits. "If my suspicions are correct, Marshall, you don't want to let that thing out of your sight. Keep it close! Do you understand me?"

"But what is it?" Loki asked.

There was a long pause before Luthis spoke again. "I'm coming aboard Marshall Sigismund. I want to see the thing with my own two eyes. Only then can I truly be sure."

Within several minutes Carnel Luthis arrived in the medical chamber along with two squadrons of the Black Templars' own Sword Brethren, fully armed and ready for battle. Upon seeing the golden object at the far end of the room, Luthis's eyes widened and he all but ran to the gleaming object, followed by the coarse-voiced protests and warning of the Brethren. Upon nearing the waist-high object, Luthis fell to his knees and ran his hands down the object's smooth golden surface. The Brethren immediately took up defensive positions around the perimeter of the room, readying themselves for battle.

"Marshall," he called. Loki walked over to the object. He quickly checked his bolter and made sure it was cocked, just in case. Loki kneeled next to Luthis.

"Do you know what this thing is?" he asked Luthis.

Luthis nodded enthusiastically. Loki could tell this object meant something to the orator. The light of recognition filled his gaze. "Yes, Marshall, I believe I do," he said.

"Tell me."

The orator and Loki stood. "Gather your men," Luthis said. "This is something they should all hear."

Loki gave the command to the rest of his men. The soldiers gathered toward the center of the medical chamber and Loki led the orator to the center of the large group. Luthis took his position at the center of a crowd of gods. The Astartes, with their genhanced bodies, towered over the orator. Though they may have been superior to the orator in nearly every way physically, they gave him pause and gathered around him to listen to his words. They did not question Carnel Luthis's vast intelligence and welcomed his council whenever he wished to give it. They had served each other over many battles, and he had never steered them wrong. It had become something of a tradition to hear him, and this time would be no different.

"This will be brief," he said, "as I imagine you do not have much time, and neither do your wounded brothers."

Luthis began, with the occasional hiss and scratching sounds coming from the dark hall beyond the end of the room. "Before mankind's Age of Technology, before the Stellar Exodus, when man first began to look outwards from Holy Terra, and pierce the shell of the Sol System, we were a primitive, superstitious race. We were young then, naïve. Only one thing remained the same, and that is our desire to be dominant among all else in the universe, a desire that was brought to the forefront with the coming of the Emperor. In this we never wavered, not even when the violent Warp Storms tore our people apart.

"Before that time, our societies were gripped by the power once called 'religion'. We believed once that it was this power that kept the demons of the Warp at bay. We crafted symbols and artifacts like that one there to aid us in protection from chaos. Driven by the power of belief alone, we defended ourselves against monsters, terrible beings that threatened to steal our children from their beds and drink their blood and consume their flesh. Symbols like the one you see there served, at one time, to bolster our spirits and to allow us to continue our lives in the face of such threats. Gentlemen, what you see there was once known by almost two billion people as the most powerful religious artifact: The Cross."

Loki knew better than to place his faith in such things. The Emperor, blessed and beloved by all, taught his people better. The light of the Emperor shone through all of them, for it was the light of truth and knowledge, yet Loki could not help but look upon this object with the deepest reverence. How is it that these things were so fearful of this artifact?

"Orator," Loki said, turning to Luthis. "How is it that these beasts are so fearful of this object, yet the Emperor teaches that such things have no power?"

Luthis smiled broadly, as if he were waiting all the while for this question to be sprung.

"Very perceptive, Marshall. But you discount the power of the mind over the power of the flesh. Your world is concerned with bolters and chainswords while the world of religion extends so much farther than that. Never underestimate the power of the mind, for it is a fearsome thing indeed."

"You're saying they are afraid because of some psychological reason?"

"That is one theory, yes."

"And the other theory?"

Luthis looked hesitant to answer. "That this object holds some influence that is simply beyond our science as it presently exists."

"You mean some religious power. The power of a god."

"I mean that we are simply unable to logically explain it at the present time. That given enough time, we would be able to ascertain a scientific reason as to why they recoil from this cross."

There was a monstrously loud bang emanating from one of the panels on the walls in the examination chamber. With several more knocks, the metal panel began to bend as if something were trying to push it off. The Templars raised their chainswords and thumbed them to life. Behind the panel, they could hear the sounds of the creatures snarling hungrily. Several white, black-veined arms reached out from behind the bent panel.

"Get behind me Carnel. You are about to witness the Templars do what they do best," said the Marshall.

The Orator was placed behind a wall of huge Astartes warriors. The panel flew off its hinges and crashed into the opposite wall behind the marines. Several of the creatures leaped from the hole into the room, fangs bared, eyes red with hunger. The Templars rushed forward to meet these beasts when they heard a similar snarling coming from the wounded behind them. Loki turned in time to see one of his wounded brothers, now merely a fanged, red-eyed husk, lunge at them. Loki quickly side-stepped and cut the head from his brother's shoulders. It seemed the other wounded were rising as well, filled with the same evil hunger. The remaining healthy Templars were trapped between their brothers and their enemies, lost as to what should be done.

Loki, with heavy heart, uttered, "Kill them all."

This would be a battle he would not soon forget.


End file.
